First of four (4), yes 4, a so called ‘tetrad‘, of lunar eclipses over the next eighteen months: April 15, 2014, October 8, 2014, April 4, 2015(Danielle’s birthday) and September 28, 2015.

The ‘blood red‘ is a media hype. It is more a deep orange or amber color. Caused by the dust (mainly volcanic) and debris in the Earth’s atmosphere. The sunlight, during the eclipse, is filtered through this dusty ‘filter’ causing the orangey shadow. Yes, some, like Al Gore, would call it pollution, but volcanoes don’t know any better. They are very impulsive.

IF you have forgotten the physics of eclipses from your school days these two diagrams will bring it all back. Right? Remember?

From Wikipedia. Click to access Wikipedia entry.

A simplified diagram, highlighting the Umbra and Penumbra. In the Umbra it is darker. Less of a shadow in the Penumbra.

Here is the NASA visibility map for the April 15 eclipsewith my N.H. annotations.

Click to ENLARGE.

As you can clearly see we are on the border — we will see the Penumbral shadow.

But there is the catch — it will occur between 2 am and 4 am!

So that is a bummer.

But, of course, we will see images all over the place tomorrow. CNN might even squeeze some in between its inane and now totally ludicrous coverage of Malaysia MH370.

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